1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates generally to sound recognition technology and, more particularly, to an apparatus and a method capable of recognizing a sound.
2. Description of the Related Art
A spoken interaction between a human and a machine has long been a dream of mankind and a field of research. Advantages of a spoken interaction with a machine are as follows. First, since spoken words are the easiest means of input for a human, it needs no practice unlike a traditional input manner using a keyboard. Second, a spoken input is much faster, perhaps twice to six times as fast as a keyboard input. Third, a spoken input is a hands and feet free input, so an input is possible even while walking.
In general sound recognition, including speech recognition or voice recognition, is to receive a sound input and to convert it into a machine-readable input. In addition to a human voice, such sound recognition may be applied to many kinds of sounds such as a handclap sound, a door opening or closing sound, a doorbell sound, a buzzer sound, and an automobile horn sound. Furthermore, sound recognition allows appliance control, data entry, document preparation, etc., and may have a great variety of applications such as a voice-controlled computer, voice dialing, a voice guide system, home automation, a car navigation system, and so forth.
Conventional sound recognition requires a very complicated process of separating a sound into distinct phonemes (i.e., phoneme segmentation) and recognizing individual segmented phonemes (i.e., phoneme awareness). Unfortunately, this may have some drawbacks such as a burden of computations or poor accuracy in recognition due to oversensitivity to noises.